marks on brass from chamber

[rich44]

I had a 223 barrel re chambered with a brand new reamer I bought from PTG the reamer is a Removable Pilot Finish Reamer in 223ai. I loaded up some fire forming loads that are under max for a standard 223 after firing the bolt was very hard to open, the bolt handle would lift easy but was hard to pull back. Should I take this barrel back and have the reamer run in alittle deeper or can I polish the marks out of the chamber and if so what should I use. Thanks

 

[Preacher]

Set the barrel up in a lathe and polish the chamber with a wood mandrel and 320 grit emery paper, and then 400....
From the looks of the case, this polishing was not done when it was chambered...
Running the reamer in deeper will not do anything but change your headspace..

 

[Ackman]

PTG reamers are just excellent. A well-done chamber will be plenty smooth without polishing. Whoever chambered the gun did a terrible job. Don't let that person near it again.

The fireform load in mine is 1gr more than the,hot) load for another rifle chambered in std. 223.

 

[Cheechako]

I don't want to scare you but, measure a few fired cases. Do they have a correct taper from head to shoulder? Your photograph almost looks like the cases are bigger in the middle which would certainly explain the hard extraction. Of course, it could be the camera angle or lighting also.

Whoever chambered the rifle did a terrible job. A PTG reamer,or any other good brand) should cut a chamber without having to polish. The only thing that I do is cut a very slight champher at the end of the chamber and then run in a bit of crocus cloth on a stick, but even that is not really necessary if the job is done right.

If you don't want to confront the guy who did the work then you could try Preacher's suggestion. But don't overdo things. Polish just enough to smooth out any roughness. You won't be able to polish out ALL the marks without ruining the chamber.

Ray

 

[rich44]

I realize I would have to set the barrel back but being a Savage could I ream it out by hand and then just screw the barrel in to adjust head space I shouldn't have to take much out,and do you need a lathe to re cut the chamber enough to remove the chatter, I do not have access to a lathe so either sanding or reaming would have to be done by hand. This is just a factory Savage takeoff barrel I have a new Shilen blank that I am going to have chambered with the same reamer by someone else. I measured the case's its just the crappy pic.

 

[Sin_arms]

your barrel should be set back to clean up the chamber. Just because the savage has a barrel nut doesnt mean you can just run it all the way back till it hits the bolt. I would suggest having a smith set your barrel back and clean up your chamber.

 

[rich44]

Thanks

 

[Sin_arms]

The only time I would use a hand reamer is if I didnt have a lathe and I was fitting a short chambered mauser barrel and just used it to take the few thousands off.

 

[jlmurphy]

It appears grooves have been cut in your chamber, possibly from cuttings that weren't cleared from the reamer. The cartridge is a straight wall type and just going deeper won't remove the grooves until the entire length of the chamber is removed. If the barrel is straight, there may be enough left to recut the threads and rechamber.

 

[Ackman]

. The cartridge is a straight wall type and just going deeper won't remove the grooves until the entire length of the chamber is removed. .

Not true, it's not a 'straight wall type' cartridge. No AI cases are. That case doesn't have a lot of taper - less than 1/2 the body taper of a standard .223 - but it does have taper. Those scratches would be removed long before the whole chamber was gone.